The Blogger Absconds

The Pleiades are traditionally known as the Seven Sisters, since that's all the stars in the cluster you can see without a telescope. Most people can't even see seven! However, a high-resolution view shows there's a lot more going on. (From Astronomy Picture of the Day.)

As you no doubt have realized, I’ve had a recurrence of my crippling writer’s block this week. Rather than continue to fight with it for the third day in a row, I’m taking a day off from frustration in hopes of rebooting my brain. In any case, here are a few links for Wednesday:

Gravitational waves are predicted from Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and their effects have been observed to a high degree of precision in binary pulsar systems. Gravity is the weakest force in the universe, though, so direct detection of gravitational radiation still hasn’t happened. Modern detectors are pushing the limits of our technology to find gravitational vibrations smaller than atoms, using a method known as “squeezed light”. (I think I may have to write about this later!)